I started doing the calcs in excel. Turns out there are a lot of variables to see who gets ahead over the 30 years, stock returns, interest rates, fluctuating rent and housing prices, cost basis and taxes. One year will make a small difference that any changes in these variables can swing it either...

if you want to fix it yourself, i can offer advice but not otherwise. my advice then is to go up on the roof with tar and a putty knife and tar liberally around everything that sticks thru the roof and look for nails that popped up. hammer them back in and tar over. I'm not getting up on the roof. ...

Not sure how your take home pay is $5k on a $200k income unless you aren't counting your spouse's income. If you are not confident in your spouse's income then you need to shop on the low low end of your target.

Here are some reasons I hold "emergency funds", aka low risk cash investments - job loss, medical (2 years worth of out of pocket max), major maintenance/repair like car or roof, short term travel cost, funeral cost, etc. Target is 3-6 months of expenses of tier 1 emergency funds which will cover an...

I'm trying to figure out if I can tap 529 plan funds in 2018 for homeschooling (K-12) purposes, and if so, what qualifies. Assuming that one can actually do this, would textbooks used to teach students qualify? Computers? Supplies? I thought homeschooling was removed from the legislation that final...

You have taxable and Roth IRA to worry about. Shouldn't be too hard to avoid wash sale in these accounts. My TLH partners in my taxable will be VLCAX and VFIAX. Some clarifications: livesoft mentioned VINIX & VIIIX will not wash with VTSAX nor VLCAX. Let us say I TLH VTSAX & exchange it to VLCAX an...

You have taxable and Roth IRA to worry about. Shouldn't be too hard to avoid wash sale in these accounts. My TLH partners in my taxable will be VLCAX and VFIAX. Some clarifications: livesoft mentioned VINIX & VIIIX will not wash with VTSAX nor VLCAX. Let us say I TLH VTSAX & exchange it to VLCAX an...

I would consolidate the stock accounts to somewhere that you can get free trades. I would for sure sell all stocks that have losses and buy index funds instead. There are free auto invest robo services like Schwab SIP which is also a wonderful customer service company to help you out. Backdoor Roth ...

Why bother doing it? I have funds at Vanguard and haven't had a reason. I guess you've missed all the various threads about other brokerages. Lots of people want to use some other custodian besides Vanguard. If you do, then holding ETFs makes a lot of sense. Sorry, I still don't get it. I assumed t...

What am I missing? Please tell me the rate on Schwab money market? I suspect it is very low so they can peddle ultralow index funds. I know for a fact that Vanguard pays about 30 basis points more on its federal money market, short term muni fund and intermediate term muni than similar Fidelity pro...

I just get a kick out of this thread getting bumped back up when I see the words "spending bitcoin." LOL Those are 2 words that just don't belong in the same sentence unless the words in front of them are "No one is".

As Greyfox noted, Bitcoin was designed and up to maybe 2015 universally presented as a practical payment system, not a base technology on which others could build a practical payment system someday. It was supposed to directly compete with credit cards and PayPal online. What little real-world expo...

Here is my opinion and what we are doing (and is similar to what my parents did to me). My money, my rules. College will be paid for as long as act in a way that I agree with and that I taught them. They are expected to get a meaningful degree with a career in mind, they will not have personal behav...

I think you are definitely getting hammered with fees at Wells Fargo and I would highly suggest you at a minimum open an account at any of the low cost providers (Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity, etc) and put your Roth IRA money towards low cost index funds. American Funds is not a bad company and the Gr...

You have gotten a lot of good info. Concerning again the WL policies, besides all of the horribly expensive fees, the complication of ever withdrawing the money (and the nasty cost to do so), etc the other issue is that you are in the accumulation phase of investment. WL is absolutely horrible for a...

I'm sorry to hear you have been ripped off by convincing you to buy whole life. I suggest to get term in place and get rid of this junk, one of the worst financial products peddled by the insurance industry.

Read the annual report. They disclose exactly what they hold and in this case why they are holding cash and cash equivalents (example from Growth Fund of America Annual Report, Aug 31, 2017): Finally, the fund retained 7.7% of its assets in cash and other short-term instruments, up slightly from a y...

At my megacorp funds have come and gone and we are automatically put into "equivalent" funds, whether they are actually equivalent from a bogleheads view or not. We always get notice. Both by mail and within the message center of the 401k online portal. Now it is possible I think to opt out of mail ...

This was nothing. When comparing a -10% drop vs -50% drop people think, oh it would just feel 5x worse. LOL. -50% drop, banking system feels like it is crumbling, jobs are being lost, etc - that's when you are really tested. This little piddly 10% drop is gone and barely talked about now. People pat...

The best way to get an answer on the internet is to ask a different question. You can’t afford a 750k house. Textbook house poor. Continue to rent. Of course they can afford a 750k house with 200k in cash and a 750k income. And no this isn't even house poor. That is buying the 1.2 million dollar ho...

See a lawyer but bankruptcy is like dropping a nuke on your life for many years. If you think it is going to wipe the slate clean to start over, think again. The toll this will have on your future is extreme.

One thing to completely strike from your conversation is that financial aid is not student loans even if the "financial" aid office calls them that. They act as if they are giving you aid when in fact they are mortgaging your niece's future. Don't fall for this lie pushed by colleges. Call them what...

Many people worry whether a 4% SWR will work in the future. Complicated attempts have been made to calculate a new SWR. Mainstream strategies use a total return approach and will liquidate a share of principal each year to meet the SWR payment. The assumption is that the assets will grow back. What...

Employee payroll 401k deductions being made to max out contributions at $18,500. Combined with HSA will result in a $7272 tax reduction. This money saved in taxes can be used to pay off the debt faster by leaving more money from reduced monthly taxes being taken out, correct? I calculated that inte...

Your plan should have an accurate assesment of all assets that you will have invested and plan to withdraw from to cover expenses. If that includes $500k from downsizing and investing the proceeds then yes, that would be included in funds as part of SWR. Why would you purposefully ignore a $500k acc...

Why not just use the free Schwab service, SIP? It has all of the aspects that they talked about and no need for advisory fee? You can also find some in-depth review and backdating of SIP in some recent threads.

I have never heard of an accountant doing the tax returns as you sit there in the office. Typically they only meet with the client at drop off to discuss all the details prior to working on it and then another meeting after they are finished. Potentially with phone calls during if there are question...